Tear Jerker / Dragon's Dogma

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You have been warned.

The Game

• If you die, your pawns will become distressed, beg you to wake up and even start crying.
  • If you think about it, pawns have been gifted with a part of the Arisen's soul, which they would later allow them to become a true human. An Arisen and Pawn essentially share the same soul. If an Arisen dies, the main pawn has essentially lost the other half of their soul, making their devastation justified. A similar situation when the main pawn dies for the Arisen, but unlike the Arisen, main pawns can be resurrected.
• In the quest Seeking Salvation which involves tracking down and spying on a Salvation gathering in an old abandoned decrepit catacomb, it's a mix of tear jerker and Nightmare Fuel.
  • When the Arisen finally gets to the meeting, they are greeted by Elysion who then welcomes the Arisen by summoning a horde of undead, who slaughter the attendees, who scream and attempt to flee, only to all fall prey to the undead. Throughout the whole scene, the Arisen can be seen horrified.
  • Right after the slaughter, the Arisen finds Mason who hands over the fate of Marcelo, who was one of the sub-leaders of the Salvation. The Arisen then has the choice to spare or kill Marcelo. All the while you're trying to decide his fate, he begs the Arisen for his life, offering money, anything he could offer. After he's expended his whole dialogue begging the Arisen, he curls up on his side on the ground, shivering in fear. Even if he was an awful person who allowed misled people to die, it is rather pitiful to see him reduced to fear and tears.
    • If you try to be benevolent and spare Marcelo, Mason kills Marcelo anyway and you won't get to do his quests later on. If you decide it's better to end his life yourself, the Arisen can be crouching over his corpse, looking rather guilty. Your pawn also tries to assure that you did the right thing and that Mason would have killed him anyway, which he does, implying that it probably would have been the best thing for Marcelo to die by your hand. You can make this ending a little happier by using a Wakestone to revive the poor sap right after Mason leaves.
• The whole story behind Ashe (better known as Daimon) in the Dark Arisen version. Just like you, he was an Arisen once, but before that he was the companion of an earlier Arisen named Grette. Grette and her pawn, Olra, found the boy amid the ashes of a village destroyed by the Dragon. Grette felt pity for him and took him under her care, serving both as his mentor and his mother figure. Tragically, only Grette's pawn, barely alive and visibly changed, returned from their final battle against the Dragon. The love he had felt for Grette turned towards her former pawn, in whom he was starting to notice more and more features that reminded him of her former master. When Ashe became Arisen he was eager to slay the creature that had taken both his village and Grette away from him. When he finally faced the Dragon he found out that it was Grette herself, who had slain the former Dragon but was transformed into the new Dragon when she failed to kill the Seneschal. What was normally The Easy Way or the Hard Way (either offering up one's beloved or trying to slay the Dragon) now became a Sadistic Choice, with one of the two people he loved most having to die. Refusing to choose between the two, his frustrated wish to tear the order of the world asunder is inadvertently fulfilled. Thusly he sacrifices Olra in return for enough power to end the cycle. Twisted by hatred for the entire world and its cycle, he becomes the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds known as Daimon.
  Grette: Now, choose. Stand against me or speak your wish. Offer your beloved in forfeit, and I shall see your will done.
  Ashe: Choose? How am I to choose? No matter my answer, the price is death; a hollow choice. Who am I to stand as arbiter of two lives.. of two loves? What would you have me do? You brought me here! You... If this be the will of the gods, the order of the world, then damn the lot of them! I’ll tear the whole of it asunder!
  Grette: Very well. If that be your wish, I shall claim my prize.
  Ashe: Stop! NOOOOOO!
  • Ends in a Bittersweet Ending when you kill Daimon for the first time and thereby free Ashe's spirit. His last lines show him dying as himself.
    Ashe: With my every breath I cursed the eternal chain and all who would perpetuate it. But more than this, I have waited... Waited for one with a will to outmatch my own, that they may break the bonds that hold me here. In hate's demise... freedom..."
• In Bitterback Isle, on Pilgrim's Gauntlet: First Floor, in a hallway that leads to a dead end filled with spiders, there sits two corpses side-by-side, one female and the other male, perhaps a couple. Their posture is strangely relaxed, almost as if they were frozen mid-conversation. Judging by the numerous Corrupted Pawns nearby and Barroch claiming that many Arisen had come before the player Arisen, it's likely that these two were Arisens that had perished in the harsh dungeon. The room the hallway is connected in seemed like remains of a camp, possibly set up by multiple arisen, and numerous dead bodies litter the area. There even seems to what looks like a dysfunctional Healing Spring to one side of the room. The camp was likely attacked, likely by the undead wyrm that appears after you picked up the Void Key, and these two Arisen were fatally wounded and without curatives or escape, leading them to both find refuge in the said hallway and quietly died together. They might not even be a couple, but two Arisens who subsequently became trapped in the hellish dungeon and sought each other's company. It's also very likely that the pawns they left behind (as well as the other apparent dead Arisen around the area) became the corrupted pawns in the room connected to this hallway. There's not much you can do except loot their corpses, rid of the spiders crawling over their remains and quietly pay your respects before going on your way.
• The Corrupted Pawns. A Pawn only separates from their Arisen in two instances: Either their master dies, allowing the Pawn to inherit their soul and become human, or being possessed by the Dragonkin bosses. Thankfully, the latter is only temporary and can be dispelled by beating the shit out of them. Not so much for the Corrupted Pawns, who not only lost their masters, but the putrid energy of Bitterblack Isle has absolutely destroyed their minds to the point where they're so far gone that they attack everyone in sight, even the player Arisen. There is no way to save them either, the only thing the player can do for them is to reunite them with their fallen masters.
• Edmun Dragonsbane, the duke of Gransys, is a stoic ruler and former Arisen who is generally seen as a mighty ruler (note that the entire country being full of dangerous monsters is relatively normal), though this mostly stems from the fact that he killed the previous Dragon that had been terrorizing the country for generations. Until you find out that he actually didn't. When you finally face the Dragon and he offers you the choice between fighting him or sacrificing your beloved in return for power, he will casually mention that Edmun himself accepted the bargain too, which is how he became a duke in the first place. This explains Edmun's Broken Tears and Freak Out in an earlier scene where he suddenly tries to kill his wife (you can let him succeed, leading to a My God, What Have I Done? moment) while screaming "I'M SORRY LENORE!" and "I WAS WRONG, I TAKE IT BACK!". He always regretted sacrificing his former lover, Lenore, and has been suffering from Sanity Slippage ever since. It is heavily implied that he saw the Dragon and convinced himself that trying to fight it would be hopeless. It's also possible that he was just a Dirty Coward. Either way, he ends up as a typical Tragic Fallen Hero that believes his own lies in order to cope with his immense guilt. When the player defeats the Dragon and returns to him, the now withered and old Duke will say that no human hands could have slain that Dragon. He will accuse you of having made the same bargain as he did.
• Any time a major NPC gets Put on a Bus you'll be treated to a scene of them saying their farewells to the Arisen and walking away while the Arisen sees them off. Of course, these scenes are accompanied by a melancholic One-Woman Wail, just to drive home the point you'll never see these characters again, despite their own promises of return.^note With the sole exception of Madeleine.
• The Dragonforged is the only known Arisen to have tried and failed to defeat the Dragon. We don't learn the specifics of his story, but there's a palpable air of tragedy and defeat to his character. His arms are horribly burnt as an eternal reminder of his failure, and he lives apart from the world he fought to hard to save, alone save for his main Pawn as company, dismissed as a raving madman by locals. He tells you that he foresook all human connection to avoid temptation by the Dragon's offer, but nonetheless allows you that choice by granting you the Arisen's Bond. One can only imagine the relief he must feel as he crumbles to dust upon the Dragon's demise.
  • When you visit his home post-game, you find his main Pawn, The Fool, left alone without his master.
• The vicious eternal cycle of the universe of Dragon's Dogma. Turns out that god of the world was actually an Arisen who defeated the dragon (Savan on the first playthrough, other people's Arisen on the second or your own Arisen in Offline mode), having inherited the seat of Seneschal after defeating the previous one. Those who lost the battle against the Seneschal are turned into the next Dragon, who would then go to find an Arisen more suited to becoming the next Seneschal. The said Seneschal would then watch over the world for eternity, caring for the world, in solitude until the next Arisen comes to kill them, to which they would finally be freed from their duty. While this might not seem that bad, this means there can never not be a Dragon terrorizing the world and the suffering that brings with (and after) it. People who are chosen as Arisens are always doomed to suffer, whether they succeed or fail. Rejection of the destiny isn't really an option either, since Ashe, who had rejected the choice he was forced to pick with the Dragon and his beloved, ended up getting cursed, becoming the Dark Arisen. The least you can do to ignore this cycle is just embrace immortality like Barroch and pretend the Dragon doesn't even exist. Even then, there will always be another Arisen who would take up arms against the Dragon if you don't, meaning that given time, you'll gain mortality once more. Depending on how much time you spent immortal, your age will catch up to you, or you'll just crumble to dust. Talk about a never ending Vicious Cycle.
• The True Ending. It involves the player Arisen having inherited the throne of Seneschal and 'gifted' with the power of God. The chamber of your new Eternal home is empty and running away from the throne merely brings you back. The only companionship is your pawn, who only offers little advice on what to do and remarks how thankful they are to be by the Arisen's side. The only thing you can do is sit on the throne and wander/observe a much more peaceful Cassadis and Gran Soren as an apparition. This is to be your duty, until the next Arisen comes to fight you and attempt to inherit your position, however long that may take. Or, you arm yourself with the Godsbane...and end your own life, which would put an end to the vicious cycle the world is trapped in. When you do decide to kill end your life, your main pawn, your loyal companion in the grueling adventure, watches in horror as you end your own life, quietly mourning until the chamber rejects your corpse and your Pawn. As your corpse and your pawn fall through the air, your pawn calls out to in desperation and you both fall in the ocean. On the beach on Cassadis, your pawn wakes up only to find that they look exactly like you. The Bestowal of Spirit had gifted a piece of your heart to them and now with your death, they have become human, just like you. And so, the tale ends, with your death into freedom and with your pawn meeting your beloved to live a quiet life, the life you had wanted.
  • Imagine how your pawn feels after you died. Although they would have probably known someday that their Master would no longer be there to guide them, but its likely that that the thought might have never crossed their mind that their all powerful master could die. Think about it, canonically in the storyline, the Arisen has never died. If they had, they would always revive themselves with a Wakestone; a timeline where you died before making it to that point didn't happen. It probably never even occurred to your pawn that you could die. Throughout the whole game your pawn always stuck by your side and protected you, asked if you were alright if you were tired, had always panicked and cried when you died, and had always showcased how immensely loyally loving they are to you. Their cry for you during the fall was real; the day they understood what death really meant was the day you would no longer be there for them. They didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to you before you two were separated for good. It's likely that they will mourn for their Arisen for a while. At least, they had a chance to tell you how lucky and honored they were to be by your side if you talked to them in the Seneschal's Chamber before using the Godsbane. At the end, you two are just another two people to fall victim to and suffer in the neverending cycle.
  • The awful thing to realize is that the cycle might not have actually ended at all with your death. It's unclear what really happened, but if you make a New Game+ and reach the end in Offline Mode, the Seneschal is now you. Your character that defeated the Seneschal in your last playthrough, in the same getup and everything. Both Savan, your old Arisen, and the other random player's Arisen will pull out the Godsbane from their chest to hand to you so you could kill them. How does your Arisen kill themselves? Stabbing themselves with the Godsbane in the chest. If this is how the game's story continuity works (rather than just being a gameplay element to allow for replay value), the cycle continues regardless if you had killed yourself or not ^note either period, or simply because the countless worlds' Arisen ensures that it does, meaning that your ultimate sacrifice and hard work was ultimately for nothing.
• While the original happy uppity tune of J-Pop opening song of the game, Into Free, was out of place and seemingly inappropriate for the game, it gets a whole lot more heartbreaking when you analyze the lyrics. The song starts off simple enough, describing the moment the player Arisen wakes up from their victory against the dragon, to find the world vastly different. The song jumps to them contemplating about their choice to end their life to end the cycle, which they ultimately deice to do, and how it felt as they died. The song then ends with the fall that the Arisen has after their corpse is rejected from the Seneschal's Chamber, the Arisen 'flying into free', free from the cycle.
  The wave is pushing me, into the current again
  I feel the blood in my veins
  Diving into free, can feel it letting go
  Not gonna hit the ground
  The sky is painted free, why can't we understand
  We kill ourselves in the end
• Most of the dragons in the postgame have a variety of boasts, challenges or taunts in their dialogue, but one in particular that can be encountered stands out; a Drake that speaks of a gnawing hunger and barely seems aware of where or what it is. When one considers that dragons are former Arisen, it becomes clear that this Drake has just awoken as a dragon and is still grasping what’s happened to them.

The Anime

• In the very first episode we see our protagonist, Ethan, have everything torn away from him. His wife, his adopted son and unborn child are all murdered by the dragon and he is powerless to stop it. This sets him on his Roaring Rampageof Revenge for the rest of the plot.
• Ethan tries to help a town by killing the cyclops that, unknowingly to them, is being used by the local mayor as a tool to keep them in line. When the truth is revealed to them, they stone the mayor - and proceed to raid the mayor's palace, where they start to fight each other over the food. Ethan cries at seeing how his and Hannah's efforts were All for Nothing.
• At the end of the series, Ethan is about to transform into the next dragon and begs Hannah to perform a Mercy Kill upon him before its too late. Hannah steels herself to try, but tells Ethan through tears that she can't do it. In the end, Ethan can only offer a smile before he turns into the very monster he hunted. He then asks Hannah to protect humanity from himself as he flies into the unknown.